


i'll be here for whatever life gives

by Sharkchimedes



Category: Onward (2020)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon, brief mentions of canonical near death experiences, when in doubt: build a fort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkchimedes/pseuds/Sharkchimedes
Summary: Ian can't sleep, which is understandable given the entirety of the last day.In which there are sour gummy dragons, brief reflections on existential dread, and a pillow fort.
Relationships: Barley Lightfoot & Ian Lightfoot
Comments: 36
Kudos: 257





	i'll be here for whatever life gives

**Author's Note:**

> listen yall i just really like this movie ok. i needed fluff. expect me to probably write more oneshots bc ill be real i havent been hit this hard by a hyperfix since gotg vol2 came out.
> 
> anyhow go forth and enjoy!

Ian couldn't sleep. When he'd first changed and gone upstairs for bed, he'd expected to be out as soon as he hit the mattress.

But he hadn't been. He's still completely awake, and when he closes his eyes, all he can see is the many ways in which he and Barley had been in danger in the last day. 

There had always been, he realized now as he stared up at the ceiling of his room, in the back of his head, the little teeny tiny fear that he could lose mom and Barley.

It wasn't something he thought about a lot; it was one of those creeping nagging fears that everyone probably had. It crept in when mom got home late from work without calling, or when Barley went off for a couple days without leaving a note. Just the kind of thing you thought about when you didn't know any better and the worry got to you.

Ian had been plenty scared for himself over the last day, between the expressway and the giant chasm he'd had to cross. The entire fight with the cursed rock dragon had been exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. 

But it had been a different kind of fear when Barley had been in danger. There was a definite difference between the fear of yourself getting hurt, and the fear of losing half the family you had left, and remembering it, and having stood by while it happened and not be able to stop it-

He suddenly remembered that Barley's eyes had been red after he'd joined Ian on the other side of the bottomless pit. How Barley had always made sure he was back up on his feet first, or out of the water.

He probably wasn't the only one a little anxious after all of it.

When Ian was a kid and had nightmares, there were one of three things that had usually happened. He would either go to his mom's room, or Barley's, or he'd end up with them both in mom's room.

Tonight, with the last day fresh in his mind, he left his room and headed for Barley's room.

Ian carefully went down the stairs, avoiding the spots where the wood would creak and either get Blazey excited or be loud enough to wake anyone else up. When he was down he stood in the living room for a minute before he walked over to Barley's door. 

He hesitated for a second before slowly turning the handle and pushing the door open.

Barley's room was simultaneously organized to an extreme degree and just as extremely messy. While there were shirts and socks and bits of mail scattered across the floor, everything in the bookshelves was meticulously sorted. All the bits for  Quests of Yore , minus the occasional runaway figure, were in one case, the decks and pieces for the advanced campaign guides seperate from Barley's older base sets.

His cassettes and cds were all in another shelf next to the desk, ordered in a way Ian didn't understand but that he knew Barley would notice if any were swapped. The desk itself was a mess, piled with whatever papers hadn't been shoved into the drawers, old energy drink cans, and usually whatever had come out of his battle vest's pockets. 

Tonight, that was a clump of receipts and wrapper bits that had turned into an indistinguishable clump when they'd gotten soaked, and Guinevere's signal light that Ian had helped Barley find in the mess of the field across from the school.

The vest itself was on the chair, carefully draped over the back. His cap, though- Ian had no idea in the dark. It usually ended up on the floor. 

The walls were nearly covered in posters, and the bulletin board was covered in pinned pack foils and pictures of both the family and Barley's friends, and a bunch of long forgotten reminders. They'd cleaned it off once and found one from eighth year that Barley had looked at, then looked at Ian and said "Oops?"

It was safe to assume that the appointment with whatever teacher that had been hadn't happened.

Barley's bed was agaisnt the far wall, under the room's window, and the closer Ian got, the sillier he felt about all of it. He didn't really need to wake Barley up, right? He could just sit in the living room by himself, or just go back upstairs and work ahead or something.

But he could also just see if Barley wasn't sleeping either. That wouldn't be a bad thing to check on. Plus, he was pretty sure Barley hadn't slept at all yesterday; he'd driven through the part of the night Ian had slept through. This was plain and simple looking out for him, at this point. 

He just needed to know that Barley was alright.

"Barley? You up?" Ian quietly asked the pile of blankets in front of him. He could see Barley's ear poking out from under the corner of one, and the fuzzy outline of an arm and an old stuffed dragon.

He was about to turn to go, ears burning a little at the idea he'd come down here just to say that and then bolt, when the blankets shifted and Barley sat up, yawning and sleepily saying, "Ian? Something up?"

"Uh- no?" Ian winced. He hadn't actually expected to get this far and oh no maybe he should've planned something-

The stuffed dragon suddenly lightly hit him in the chest as Barley detangled himself from the mess of blankets. "Hold Queenie for a sec." 

So Ian held Queenie while Barley carefully got the fleece fibers off his new cast and freed his legs, standing and stretching with a yawn. 

"Sorry for waking you up." Ian said sheepishly as he handed the dragon back to be returned to her place on Barley's pillow.

"Hey, don't worry about it." Barley put an arm around Ian and tugged him close in a hug. "I wasn't sleeping that well. I'm guessing you weren't either?"

If Ian wasn't tired and still processing everything that had happened in the last day, he might have said something like "Seems like you were, actually," but what came out was, "Yeah."

Barley nodded, and lightly squeezed Ian before letting his arm drop and carefully walking around him. "Come on."

"Where are you going-" Ian turned to follow, frowning.

"We're going to have to watch with captions or we'll wake mom up, but we can still watch a movie." Barley answered, pulling his vest from the desk chair and threading a path through the things on the floor.

Ian followed, letting himself feel the buzz of relief that he wasn't alone. They went back out to the living room and Ian helped Barley move the cushions and blankets from the couch and chairs to a pile by the tv. They couldn't move the couch without it waking mom up, so a pillow fort would have to do. 

There was a little disagreement over whether to use the couch cushions for a back or for sides, which ended with Ian pulling a blanket out from under Barley's feet and then having to catch him before he knocked a chair over. After that, they agreed to use them for both and just have a back and only one side wall.

Ian found himself sitting in the middle of the rapidly rising fort, and then blinked and found Barley's battle vest over his shoulders as Barley patted them and went to the kitchen to retrieve snacks.

He came back with several bags of what was basically sugar and chips and a tub of ice cream and a couple sodas. Barley settled in next to him and handed Ian the remote to the tv. 

Ian turned the tv on and changed over to the dvd player, pulling the vest tighter around himself with his other hand. Barley tore open a bag of sour gummy dragons. After a couple minutes of comfortable silence, the only sounds being the settling and creeping of the house, Barley chewing on the gummies, and the faint click of the remote's buttons, Barley cleared his throat.

"Hey, Ian?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

A half hour into a movie they'd both loved as kids, Ian could feel himself starting to drift as Barley leaned into him and snored. There were drips of ice cream on his arms that would be gross and sticky come the morning, and a lot of crumbs that would need to be washed out of the blankets, but here in the pillow fort he and his brother had built, Ian was warm and safe. 

Things were probably going to be a little weird for a while, but they were okay.

And that was what mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> this was posted from my mobile device as my laptop is Big Broken so i apologize for any errors that i didn't catch in format/uploading!


End file.
